Southern Mediterranean Discovery

Booking Dates

07/25/2018 through 12/30/2018

Travel Dates

07/25/2018 through 01/06/2019

Provider

Viking Ocean Cruises

Southern Mediterranean Discovery Rome to Barcelona

Cruise into the southern Mediterranean, where fascinating cultures have intersected and exchanged ideas for centuries. During this 8-day sojourn, you’ll have time to discover Rome. Visit two of the Mediterranean’s most beautiful and culturally rich islands-Sicily, with its rugged beauty, and Sardinia, a cornucopia of locally produced citrus fruit, artichokes, olives and wine. Uncover the mysteries of ancient Carthage in Tunis and the whitewashed Casbah of Algiers. Spanish splendor greets you in Valencia and Barcelona.

Cruise into the southern Mediterranean on this enriching itinerary. You will have time to discover Rome, the former seat of an empire. Visit two of the Mediterranean’s most beautiful and culturally rich islands, Sicily and Sardinia. Marvel at the grand architecture of Naples and explore the magnificent whitewashed Casbah of Algiers. Spanish splendor greets you in historic Valencia and in Barcelona, the vibrant Catalonian capital.

Algiers

A resort town, best known for for the magnificent Theater, Agora, the Apollo Temple and Necropolis.

Barcelona

The airport for Puerto La Cruz in northeast on the Caribbean. Isla de Margarita is off the coast.

Naples

Lava, spewing from a live volcano–no, you won’t see this in Naples, Italy, and you’re lucky, because the last folks in these parts who witnessed such an event were the natives of Pompeii, who were buried under 30 feet of ash and pumice stone in AD 79. You can, however, visit the beautifully preserved remains of this unfortunate city on a short tour from Naples.

There’s much more to Naples, of course. This picturesque city is one of the great cultural centers, full of extraordinary works of art and architecture in the classical Greek and Roman styles.

Naples, on its justly famous blue bay, is the great city of the south. Located on the southwest coast of Italy, south of Rome. The Amalfi Drive to the south arguably is the world’s most scenic motor route. Naples enjoys a very dry and warm climate year around.

Rome

Rome wasn’t built in a day…but you can tour it in just over 10 hours. A teeming anthill of humanity and antiquity intermingled with awful traffic jams, Rome grew up on the Tiber (“Fiume Tevere”) among seven low hills that rise from the river’s soggy eastern banks. It’s a city of many peeling layers of history, of which the bottom layer–that of the earliest Roman centuries–is the most interesting and still astonishingly whole. The hub of this layer is the Palatine Hill, the Forum, the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.

On the western bank is the Citta Vaticana, the independent papal city where the Pope blesses pilgrims from all over the world. Neighboring Trastevere (“Across the Tiber”) is a mix of Roman, Greek and Jewish subcultures, great for little restaurants and nightlife. Further north on the other bank is “vecchia Roma,” medieval Rome of the Pantheon and Piazza Navona; Renaissance Rome is centered south of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Commercial Rome is the city of the Via del Corso, the Piazza del Popolo, the controversial Victor Emmanuel monument and finally the Stazione Termini, the nexus for all trains and roads from Rome.

Sicily

Sicily, or Sicilia, has a population of almost 5 million. The terrain is mostly mountainous; its highest point being Mt. Etna, which is actually an active volcano stretching 11,000 ft from sea level. Sicily is the Mediterranean’s largest island, and its main crops are citrus fruits, vines, olive trees and cereals.

Tunis

Tunis’ white-washed, blue-shuttered buildings hide a treasure trove of Arabic and Ottoman art. Inspect illuminated manuscripts from the Koran, follow the twists and turns of the fascinating old Medina (inner city), marvel at the ornate Palace of Dar Ben Abduallah and the magnificent Djamaa-Ez-Zitouna Mosque, whose 184 columns were “recycled” from the rocky ruins of Carthage. And only a stone’s throw away are what’s left of the ancient Punic port.